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Do you mean because people just use metric in those contexts, or that everyone avoids math? I assure you people regularly figure out how many small things fit
by 8organicbits 3y ago
Do you mean because people just use metric in those contexts, or that everyone avoids math?
I assure you people regularly figure out how many small things fit in a large thing. I places where those things are measured in feet and miles, that's what they'd use.
- db48x 3y agoI mean that in every context where a person would ever have to convert units or do long division, we invent a new set of units instead. Others have given other examples, such as printers who divide the inch into points and picas. They do this because it makes figuring out how many characters fit in a line of type easier than if they measured the type in fractions of an inch. It lets them work with integers instead of fractions all day. Of course these days it’s all computer–driven and it hardly matters what units printers use; the computer does the counting and could just as easily do it in fractions of an inch.